Season Starts 'morrow

Its time for three pointers, point guards, rebounds and time-outs

The grueling NBA season starts tomorrow after unbelievable off-season activity.

Wade - James - Bosh is surely the most potent force available with 'Heat', though the legendary Pat Riley is no more the coach of the team, he wll surely be active in guiding Miami Heat.
I am a big big Wade fan, Wade and Shaqueel's game in 2005-6 season is the reason I have started following this game. They wil always be closer to my heart.

Reigning champions LA Lakers are surely the favorites this time again. When u have Kobe, u r favorite. With Gasol coming very strong last season and 5 times champion Derek Fisher still hanging around, u can blindly count them in Western Conference finals.

One of the most important transfers during off-season is of Shaqueel's. He has moved to Celtics. Just add his name to already star-studded Celtics lineup of Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Kevin Garnett and Rajon Rondo and u will realise they are stronger than earlier. Surely, one cant ever take them out of contention.

Another of my favorites, Dwight Howard has got an able shooting guard Vince Carter and a three pointer master Rashard Lewis. The most striking thing about Magic is their coach Stan Van Gundy. I bet this guy can motivate a dumb to play a winning performance.

I am keeping fingers crossed for Heat's victory, its gonna be helluva of a time tomorrow onwards.

One Year In Canada

Its been one year for me in Canada. Never before I have lived away from my family and friends for so long.

During this time, I got to see my parents for a week and I really feel fortunate for that.

I dont know why but I like India little too much, waha ki mitti mein kuch alag hee khushbu hai.

During last one year, I got good professional experiences. Its not as if I didnt come across a$$h0les but there were many good guys also. Got lot of new friends.

Talking about work, see I am not developing controls for satellites, But almost at the end of every day, I felt like I learned something new, and I am happy in that.

On a lighter note, the most important thing with this project was realization of great saying by Maharashtrian Saint

"Prayatne waluche kan ragadita Telahi Gale"

So what I am doing or what this whole Shell project is, they are crushing the oil sands to separate bitumen from sand/clay and this bitumen is further processed to get heavy crude oil. these sand deposits are so big that, It can surely support the oil requirement of whole world even if gulf denies to do so. U will get mroe details about it @http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_sand s

I salute our saints who had knowledge of oil sands ;-) without a single deposit being present across Indian subcontinent.

I wanted to see Vancouver, as it is considered to be one of the most beautiful cities in the world but I think I need to come sometime later for that, this time it just didnt happen.

I visited almost all the recommended places in 'One Day' perimeter of Calgary and each location was worth visiting. I still cherish memories of Lake Moraine and its serene surrounding. Banff and Lake Louise were equ ally beautiful. The Hoodoos were just awesome and so were the Drumheller Dinosaurs.

Believe me guys, Canada lives on Tim Hortons. And this Coffee/Donut place do serve one of the best coffees. Taste of French Vanilla or Double Double will stay with me forever.

IPL-3 and me

This is third season of the latest revolution in Cricket, T-20 cricket. But even in its third season, IPL has not been able to create enough interest in Cricket's traditional fan base(I am counting myself as one amongst them).

Its really surprising but what interests me in IPL's 2010 season is its deferred live (By 5 mins) broadcast on Youtube and few more garbage from FakeIPLPlayer. FakeIPLPlayer has been the toast of second season. Though it has lost its shine over one year, people still anticipates lot of new names and so called insider information as they have never been exposed to something like that.

I dont feel attached to either Mumbai Indians or Kolkatta KnightRiders. IPL's every match is just like one of the thousand bollywood movies releasing every year, hardly one amongst them deserves time to watch. Last year also, they showed these matches in multiplexes, I question myself are these matches really worth of spending such money. Till now I treat this whole thing as "Nautanki" only, yet to figure out real mass in it.

One thing which bothers me a lot is players dedication towards these matches. It does hurt me but I have to start this scrutiny with my favourite, Sachin himself.

Sachin, he takes pride in playing for India and thats seen even from his helmet but what would be the case when he is playing for Mumbai Indians. Does he take same pride in playing for them?

Ok, let me consider them as employees of respective team owners but in that case also I am not able to correlate these guys to usual engineers who are slogging their asses for respective owners.

Other thing is, correlating these guys to so called club culture in Europe or Americas. But what everybody will see is these players hardly play for their countries. International Soccer matches or Basketball games are as rare as Halley's comet. In case of cricket, this is very different. Cricket enthusiasts would always want to see Inda-Pakistan game or Aus-Eng game. The history these games carry, the kind of rivalry on field is unmatchable in these club games.

Anyways new season of F1 holds lot of interest for me with Schumacher's return and lot of new rules. Will write about it soon.

Cool Runnings!!

Vancouver Winter Olympics ended yesterday with the fitting finale. Canadian Hockey fans wouldn't have expected anything better than this. This victory has immortalized their Demigod 'Sydney Crosby'. He handed over the most cherishable gold medal to Canadians.

Truly, Superstars rise to the occasion. Till that moment Sydney had nothing mentionable in the game. To say about the whole tournament, he had decider goal against Switzerland only. He was so average throughout but you just can't contain excellence. It has that knack for Big games.

For the first time I was following Winter Olympics. To start with Indian presence, we had three participants. Full stop. I cant give any more information about our performance.

I liked overall concept of Winter Olympics, but many of them would find place in X-games category rather than Olympic games category. I have to mention two sports, Skeleton and Luge. I just don't understand how can these two sports be considered as Olympic sports. They are too risky for participants and in fact one athlete from Georgia lost his life during Luge training run.

Apart from Ice Hockey, Curling and Bobsledding fetched my attention. They are kind of team sports and require full dedication from each member. Interest in Bobsledding directed me in watching this amazing movie 'Cool Runnings'. Part true and part fictional movie shows the adventures of 4 Jamaican guys in 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics. While watching Winter Olympics, my experiences were none the different. For a person from Tropical conditions, even watching winter sports would always remain one heck of an adventure.

निसर्गराजा!

माझा मित्रा पश्या हे एक महान व्यक्तिमत्व आहे पण ते एक जगा-वेगळ रसायन आहे. तो खरा खुलतो ते निसर्गाच्या सान्निध्यात. ते म्हणतात ना, मनाची शांति वगैरे काय ते, ते मिळत त्याला जेव्हा तो दर्या-खोर्‍यातून फिरत असतो तेव्हा. गेल्या ३-४ वर्षं मध्ये त्यान मुंबई पुण्याच्या आस-पासच्या बहुतांश सगळ्याच गड-किल्ल्यांना भेटी दिल्या असतील. खरतर भेट दिली असेल असा म्हणन चुक ठरेल, त्यानी त्या गड-किल्ल्यांचा अभ्यास केला असेल (बरोबर आहे अभ्यास करण आणि खूप मार्क्स मिळवणा हा देखील त्याचा एक छंद) मला अस वाटत की आयुष्यात काय करायचा हे जानन तितकाच महत्वाच आहे जितक की पृथ्वीतलावर जन्म घेण (ही गोष्ट इतकी महत्वाची असूनही हजारात एखादाच जाणतो). बहुतेक ही अनुभूती व्हायला जीवनाच सर्वांगी दर्शन होणा गरजेचा आहे. पश्यान खूप काही पाहिलाय आन तेच कारण असणार की त्याला काय हव आहे, काय करायाच आहे ते तो जाणतो. मोजक्या शब्दात जर त्याच वर्णन करायचा झाल तर 'एक अष्टपैलू व्यक्तिमत्व' हे अतिशय चपखल बसत मी पाहिलेला एकमेवाद्वितीय अष्टपैलू व्यक्ती. तुम्हा असा यूनिवर्सिटी टॉपर शोधून सापडणार नाही जो दर्या-खोर्‍यांनी, गड-किल्ल्यानी फिरतो, जो उत्तम रेखचित्रे काढतो. ह्यास शाडूची माती द्या, तो एखादी सुंदर मूर्ती बनवेल, ह्याच्या हातात कॅमेरा द्या, तुम्ही पाहत राहाल असे फोटोस मिळतील, पक्षी विषयकही तेवढीच माहिती. खेळ आणि खेळाडूंच्या बाबतीत तसेच सिनेमाच्या बाबतीतही एग्ज़ॅक्ट इन्फर्मेशन असते. एकंदर असा प्राणी पुन्हा घडणे नाही. जे ह्याच्या सहवासात आले ते पावन झाले, अन् त्यातलाच मी एक. लवकरच पुढचा भाग.....

2010; Get hooked up to the television set

So the twenty-ten has arrived. It would be one heck of an year for sports followers. Be it Soccer, Cricket, Tennis or Formula1, there will be lot of action.

Sports biggest event, FIFA world cup is ther this year. June-July, whole world would be keenly following the first world cup in African continent. It must be one of the most eagerly awaited event as it will define who is better player between Kaka, Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Lionel Messi. It would be interesting to see whether the methodical european football has what it takes to overturn the magic of Samba kings. After a long time English team is looking good, they have good combination of youth and experience but coming July will only tell whether that is enough or it requires much more than that to be the champions. Though Argentina struggled in qualifiers, they are my personal favorites, They wil be playing under the guidance of Maradona with Lionell Messi and Carlos Tavez at their disposal, they can change result of any match within last gasping seconds also.

Another mega event of 2010 is T20 Worldcup. 2009 Champions League shows that tournament hosts West Indies are the team to look for in this format. Their performance is always unpredictable but T20 is also equally unpredictable format. Indians will surely go as one formidable team in the tournament, they would like to reclaim their lost title but for that to happen they have to win against South Africans first. This year will also show more or less revolving test championship mace. Three test matches series between India and South Africa would be the deciding point for this mace in 2010.

Fedex achieved career grandslam last year, broke Samprass's record for maximum grandslams but memory of last year's Australian final still haunts his fans, they want the rematch and that would be the first major sporting event of the year. Though the US open and year ending tournament showed the advent of new champion (Del Porto), Federer-Nadal is stil regarded as the game to watch out for. Every Nadal fan is awaiting for his return to usual. He has been one great champion of this game and deserves to win couple of more grandslams in this year.

Last year Cavaliers could not reach NBA finals and in a way we missed on watching Kobe Bryant versus Brain James dual. This year with Shaqueel moving to Cavaliers and Lakers as good as last year, we will surely get to see most awaited dual between NBA MVPs. Though Astana won Tour De France last year, legendary Lance Armstrong failed to win Yellow Jersey. This year his Team Radioshack can turn the tables on current champions Alberto Contador and Team Astana.

Last but not the least, December 2009 brought the best news for Formula-1 followers. Return of Schumacher-Brawn pairing ought to create tougher competition for Mclaren and Ferrari. It is clear now that we will be missing Iceman this year, but you never know F-1 is very dynamic sport. With sleek front tires, ban on refuelling during race and new point system It would be an interesting competition.

Lets hope that this year will bring lots of joy to all the followers of sports making their every experience cherishable.